Flea Market Finds

Happy wednesday! The sun is finally shining and the sky is blue! Ahhhh..... just what I needed! Thank you Lord! :)

I have lately been suffering from the remodeling blues and needed some sort of creative outlet! However, my craft room is currently buried under all of our furniture and boxes of things from the rooms we are remodeling. :( So, instead I was able to carve out some time in the past couple weeks to do some thrifting. I feel blessed to live in the area I do. We have A LOT of great antique malls, thrift stores, and flea markets! :) :)

Also, if you notice - my pictures are bigger! yay! I hope to work on my editing skills soon to get my pictures to look even better but for now I'm liking the new look! Cindy over at My Romantic Home posted a link on a great (and simple!) tutorial about enlarging your pictures. Click here to see it.

So without further ado..........

most of this stuff is from a local thrift store. (Share & Care in Berlin for those of you who are familiar with the area.) the birdhouse display is a hand-me-down from my grandma. isn't it great? the linen & lace cloth napkins I got at a local antique mall. they were half price!! $2.00 for a set of seven!!

tea cups for 25 cents each.

$1.00 each for the vase and metal bin.

here is the cute little wagon I got at the antique mall. I just thought it was too adorable to pass up. this was my splurge at $12.00. Not to shabby if I do say so myself! I'm thinking of planting flowers in it this spring/summer.

This week I am linking up with My Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday.

Progress Report

Can it really be Friday already? And not just any Friday but the last Friday in February? Where has the time gone?

It's snowing again here in the heart of Amish country and I never thought I'd say this but ENOUGH ALREADY! I am starving for sunshine and warm weather. I keep reminding myself that soon enough it will be spring and all the piles of snow will melt away.

For now though we are managing to keep busy with remodeling, work and life in general. Here are some recent pics.

I managed to get all the trim painted. Hooraah! Here are some pieces of crown molding and door trim.

Here is the kitchen in it's state right now. I am so pleased with how it's coming along!! I was still undecided about whether or not I liked the backsplash color and wall color but now that things are coming together I love them!

My sink (with new cottage-y faucet!!) and dishwasher!

close up on faucet. :)

One day while walking by the living room door I looked in and just had to chuckle to myself. I thought: 'I really should take a picture of this so we can remember when it's all done how we have been living.' Haha. I am very thankful for my husbands great sense of humor through all of this! Not one complaint has he uttered!

And here we have my little helper. He is my sunshine even when there is none to be found in the bleak winter sky.

Today I am linking to Remodelaholics Anonymous. See the button on my sidebar.

I'm a winner!!

Just had to share my excitement with all of you! Cindy from My Romantic Home contacted me the other day to let me know that I am the lucky winner in her recent give away! I will be receiving the first issue of Flea Market Syle!! I can't WAIT to dig into this magazine. I must admit that I am a bit of a magazine junkie. Magazines just aren't as popular as they used to be though and unfortunately 2 of my favorites have recently been discontinued. :( So when I heard word of a new flea market decorating magazine I was so excited! And even more when I heard that I had won!

Here's a picture of the cover:

aren't those colors just so pretty? CAN'T WAIT TO GET IT! I will keep you all posted. :)

In other news the kitchen is coming along nicely. I will try to get some pictures posted soon! Sorry I have gotten so behind! With less than 14 weeks until our due date I am scrambling for time to get things done and energy to do them! Well for now it's back to laundry and cleaning! Have a super day!

Warm Paint & Pretty Floors

Well here we are, Saturday evening already! Another week has flown by and I am happy to report that much progress has been made in our kitchen/dining room remodel. Thanks to all of you who left such helpful comments on my last post. After much debating and deep contemplation I decided to go ahead and change up the wall color and color in the back of the cabinets. I just felt like it was a little too bold for my taste. It looked quite a bit darker in person than in the pictures I had posted and I just felt I needed something a little bit more subdued. So here are some pictures showing the new colors.

I just think this wall color makes the whole room warmer! The first color was way too grey for me. I actually got a REALLY warm brown and mixed it with the brown/grey I had and this was the color I came up with. I love it! And yes, that is the new color in the cabinets. I did the same mixing trick here and just got another, much more muted blue/green paint and mixed it with what I had. I love the result. Cannot WAIT to accessorize! The cabinets above the sink and above the stove will be open/display cabinets when this whole thing is said and done. :)

Close up of the new colors.

Here is a shot of the cabinets and one panel of the bead board. This one is going to be used to cap the ends of the lower cabinets that show. Still debating if I want to antique it or not.

These are the doors for the upper cabinets. I am in the process of painting them right now. Pop sanded and scraped them for me (he said that the paint could have lead content and did not want me doing that job being 6 months pregnant and all. He wore his respirator for this job!) so that they would turn out nice. What an awesome grandpa I have! Some of them were in pretty bad shape.

And here is the dining room floor with 2 coats of polyurethane on it. Still needs sanded and a coat or 2 more but I think it looks GREAT! I am so happy with it! We decided to skip the stain because we liked the color so much. This is just a clear latex sealer in a satin finish.

The kitchen floor with 2 coats.

My little helper! Couldn't resist putting this picture up even though it is a bit fuzzy. Raine LOVES the hardwood floors. I really worried at first that they wouldn't be very baby/kid friendly but so far so good. He thinks it's his own personal basketball court. I have a feeling he won't be too happy when we put the furniture back in there! haha.

Like I said, I am so excited to get to the decorating point in the kitchen. The actual remodeling is fun as well but the accessorizing and decorating are the parts I really look forward to. Here is a picture that I found that I love! The room has similar colors and just feels so warm and cozy. I'm trying to figure out what kind of curtains I want for both rooms. I really like the ones in this picture. hmm.... food for thought......

Photo credit: blissfully domestic

Time to Catch Up!

Wow I think that somehow in the midst of all my painting/sanding/cleaning/taking care of baby/hanging out w/ hubby/occasionally sleeping I have fallen sadly behind in my blogging. Sorry to those of you who have been patiently awaiting a new post. (If there are any of you out there...... haha!)

So here is a view out our kitchen window. Got a crazy amount of snow yesterday! Just had to share a couple shots of the white wonderland.

our back porch

and here we are in the kitchen. this picture is a bit overdue. this was after all the drywall was hung and the seams were "mudded." I love these pictures because they remind me that we are making progress!

here are some of the finished drawer fronts. the antiquing effect was sort of hard to capture but you can kinda see it. they look a little more distressed in person I think.

finished cabinet doors.

upper cabinet doors. Pop has been working on these for me! bless his heart! 4 of the doors were in pretty bad shape so we've been working on those.

here are the cabinets themselves. had time to get 2 coats on them the other day. may need to do one more. we'll see.

sanding drywall is a dirty/dusty job. if you don't believe me this picture should prove it.

with the help of our family we got the dining room carpet pulled up and the floor is all ready to be sanded and finished! don't you just love how they stained only the floor around the edges. haha. when we got everything moved out we thought this would be the perfect time to paint the walls (I've been wanting to do that for some time now. had the paint & everything!) so spur of the moment we called Jeff's uncle (who happens to be an awesome painter!) and it just so happened that he was free the next morning! WOO HOO! Here is the finished result. The walls were gold before and are now a pleasing olive green.

here is the kitchen after 2 coats of primer and finish coat of paint on the ceiling. LOVE those recessed lights!

OK. so here is the first cabinet that I have painted the backs in. I'm not too sure about the color though. Someone HELP! What do you think of the robin's egg blue? Too bright? I can't tell if it's muted enough for me. The wall color is much more grey than I wanted and I can't tell if perhaps that's why I'm not liking the aqua? I plan to do the second coat on the walls in a warmer brown. More brown sugar/caramel than taupe.

I LOVE this color scheme. This paint color actually looks very similar to what mine looks like in the can but it looks a little different on the wall. Perhaps I need another coat? (photo is from the following blog: http://cottageinstincts.blogspot.com/)

This one is brighter and I still like it. Bright and cheerful but not to the exclusion of elegance and charm. (photo is from the following blog: http://whitelinenlavenderfield.blogspot.com/)

So here's one last shot. What do you think? Should I stick with the color I have in the cabinet back or go with something more muted? Any help would be much appreciated. And I always love inspiration pictures! :)

This week I am linking to the following parties:

Cottage Instincts: Make it for Monday

Twice Remembered: Make your Monday

Well things are moving right along with the kitchen! I must say though that I am thankful for a day of rest today. :) Here are some pictures of kitchen-y odds and ends.

this picture was taken before we had all the drywall on. you can see one of the recessed lights in the ceiling. I think I'm going to LOVE the new lighting! Much better than one fixture in the middle of a 9'x20' space!

cabinet doors and drawer faces second coated and ready for antiquing glaze. I started antiquing them on friday night. I'll post some pics of them soon.

my sweet wood applique! I love how it dresses up the whole look of the false front! (This is the false drawer front that goes on the cabinet below my sink.)

Dad K doing some wiring. Moving switches and putting in new receptacles for my phone and microwave where the hutch will be. Thanks for all your work!

my wonderful husband "mudding" the screw holes in the drywall.

handy Andie and Jeff working on the drywall seams.

More sanding, painting and progress to come this week! Check back!

Just a few things I'm excited about today that I thought I'd share......

I ordered this book from amazon.com and it came in the mail the other day. I LOVE it. If you are looking for a good kitchen idea book I would recommend this one. Click here to view it on amazon.

A couple weeks ago I found a kitchen faucet that I LOVED on overstock.com. Our sink is one that mounts to the wall so it's been a little tricky to find a faucet in the style/color/price range that I want that is wall mounted. The color and style were perfect on this one but it was a little pricey. I decided to look around and think it over a bit and eventually came to the conclusion that it was the faucet for me! However, by that time overstock was sold out of them with no estimated date when they would have them again. :(

Oh the disappointment........

Without much hope I put my e-mail address into the little window to be notified when they were available again.

Last night I was thinking about this lovely faucet with regret but knew that there must be a reason that all of this happened. I just prayed that if I was meant to have it I would get an e-mail soon that it was available. And then an incredible thing happened! I woke up this morning and there in my inbox was an e-mail saying that it was available!!! So obviously without hesitation I bought it! Thank you Lord. He really does care about the little things! :)

So without further ado. Here it is:

click here to view it on overstock.com

Well that's all for now. I better get back to work taking off the doors of the upper cabinets and cleaning them out for painting.